


His Christmas Story

by Hllangel



Category: Scrubs
Genre: Christmas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hllangel/pseuds/Hllangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas Eve and Dr. Perry Cox treats three patients that are definitely not ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Christmas Story

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Karaokegal, Super-Beta Extraordinaire!
> 
> Written for wickedfox

 

 

Dr. Perry Cox hated Christmas. No, really. Even though he had a kid these days, he hated the damn holiday. Jordan always yelled at him for taking full shifts on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, but it blew over when the checks arrived and she spent the bonus money on new shoes for herself or new wardrobes for Jack and Jennifer. If he wasn't careful, they'd learn to shop from their mother, and that was a disaster waiting to happen. The money wasn't the reason he did this every year, though. He did it to get through the terrible ordeal that was Christmas so that he could drink himself into oblivion on New Year's.

Dorian, of course was in full fledged Christmas mode, and he'd even been wearing a Santa hat. He'd put it on the day after Thanksgiving, and as far as Perry could tell, hadn't taken it off since, not even to sleep. 

"Dr. Cox," he started, reaching into his pocket and pulling out yet another symbol of holiday cheer in the form of a candy-cane pen, "Have you signed the card for -"

"Bah Humbug," Perry replied, ignoring Gloria and continuing to fill out his own paperwork with a nice, normal, not-holiday-related, boring pen that had come from some drug rep or another.

"Somebody's a Scrooge," Newbie said.

"Somebody's going to rip that hat off your head if you don't move along in the next five seconds," Perry replied.

"Merry Christmas to you, too," Angela quipped, moving off to the side to look at a chart.

Perry finished the notation he'd been writing before Mary interrupted him, and picked up the next chart that needed attention, groaning at the name. Patience Dearborn had been in Sacred Heart on Christmas Eve every year for the past four years, with something different every time. The first year she'd been in a car crash. Commonplace enough that the incident hadn't raised any red flags, but the next year she'd come back, having swallowed a nearly fatal dose of Advil. Then she'd tried sleeping pills, and the previous year had progressed to attempted hanging. This year, Perry had money on slit wrists. 

Sure enough, when he got to her bedside, there was a bag of B+ hanging by the bed, and bright white bandages wrapped around her forearms.

"Oh look, it's the not-quite-ghost of Christmas past."

"Did you win?" she asked.

"Looks that way," he replied. "I'm putting the money towards cheap booze and a hooker for New Year's."

"Congratulations."

"I would say the same to you, but if there was something to congratulate, you wouldn't be here to hear it, would you?"

Patience was silent. picked at the edges of her bandages. 

"What went wrong this time? Fail a class at community college? Boyfriend dump you?"

"You know, you used to be at least try to be nice."

"I have a limited supply of kindness. Yours ran out three seconds after you came through the door."

"But I just attempted suicide," Patience whined.

"For the fifth time. Boo hoo. Right now, you're just another patient on a very busy night." Perry said. "Other than the gaping holes in your wrists, you're fine."

"At least you didn't say 'Merry Christmas,'" She said glumly. 

"What's there to be merry about? My retirement's gone, we're fighting a war we can't win. Nay, two of them, but it doesn't even matter because the planet's going to roast and we'll all burn to death in the next twenty years. If by some miracle that doesn't happen, we'll end up as a tribal society forced to eat each other because there's no room to grow any food anymore. With another great depression on the way, I find I'm justified in my loathing of a holiday that forces you to spend all your hard earned cash on presents for a family you never see otherwise, who will only get a few fleeting moments of pleasure that disappear as soon as you start cleaning up the discarded bits of garishly colored paper."

"You gave me the same speech last year," Patience said. "You don't change at all, do you?"

"I try not to." Perry made a note for a psych visit in the chart, like he'd done every time for the last few years, and left without saying good-bye. He was pretty sure he'd see her in a year, anyway.

The next patient on his list was Mary Morris, up for her first round of chemo.

"Dr. Cox," she greeted him as he approached the bed. "You seem in high spirits today."

"Do I need to repeat the speech I just gave to Patience over there? Because I will if you really want."

"I think I'll pass, thanks," she answered. "I know you don't like Christmas much, but the least you could do is use one of those pens Carla made for everyone."

"If I wanted a pen with dangly bits I'd have bought one at the store," Perry replied. "A pen does what it's supposed to do without adding bits and pieces onto it."

"You know, you could at least try to get into the holiday spirit. For you, I'm sure that means not descending into a rant anytime anyone with a smile comes near you."

"And what would I get out of it?"

"Absolutely nothing," Mary cheerfully told him. "But maybe some of the other doctors and nurses wouldn't feel so bad about putting up Christmas decorations. Dr. Dorian is the only one that even tries anymore. Even Carla's given up on you."

Perry stopped to think. He'd been so busy avoiding Grace's many holiday advances that he hadn't even noticed that no one else had even tried. They all stopped talking about holiday plans as soon as he walked into any room, and they hadn't even attempted to play holiday music in the lounge this year. He'd called the silence a victory, but maybe it wasn't. Dorian's attempts didn't count, since the kid refused to see reason, but in between all of it, he hadn't even noticed that Carla hadn't spoken to him in a month, aside from hospital business. She'd tried so hard to get him into the Christmas spirit last year. Maybe it had been her last attempt, and he hadn't even noticed.

"I like it this way," he argued, "It's all commercial anyway."

"It doesn't have to be," Mary protested.

"If you give me a speech about the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ I will spike your IV."

"I'd spike that IV," leered a voice from the doorway.

"Not even remotely close to being decent innuendo. And aren't you supposed to be in surgery?" Perry questioned.

"I'm taking five," Todd explained casually He looked like he was going to continue that line of discussion, which no doubt would be interesting, but a gaggle of young nurses walked by the room and Todd wandered off. Perry idly wondered if he would even remember to go back to wherever he'd slouched in from.

Mary continued as though there had never been an interruption, "If you don't let up your assault on the holiday season, there won't be anything left for you to rail against. And that will be even less fun."

"Harrumph," Perry replied. Maybe he'd consider lightening up next year, but as it was now Christmas Eve, there was nothing for it today.

He found no new patients when he left Mary's room, so he ventured down to the lounge for a few minutes of rest, if he could possibly get it. 

Luck was on his side. The lounge was empty, save for a few plates of cookies. He bit into one just as his pager went off. He quickly finished the rest of his cookie and went to see who desperately needed him for what. 

Turk and Todd were getting a new patient settled in the ward. 

"Dr. Cox, this is Tom Goddard. He was in a car crash and lost his leg," Turk made the introductions. 

"Merry Christmas, Tom," Perry said sarcastically.

"Merry Christmas," Tom replied. "Dr. Cox, right?"

Perry was surprised that he seemed to genuinely mean it. "That's me."

"You'll have to remind me again in the morning. The meds they have me on are making me dizzy."

"We have meds for that, too," Perry replied, cocking his pen to add one of them to the list of what Tom was already receiving for the pain.

"No thanks," Tom said. "I'd rather be dizzy than totally knocked out when my family visits tomorrow."

"That's gotta be depressing, spending Christmas in a hospital."

"That's what you're doing."

"Yeah, well I work here."

"And I'm going to be living here for the foreseeable future, so my wife and daughters will be coming to see me."

"You're looking at months of rehab," Perry said, stating the obvious. "Doesn't that depress you?"

"Nope," Tom said. 

Perry checked his vitals, and noted them down on the chart. By the time he'd finished, Tom was fast asleep and snoring.

The Janitor accosted him as soon as he left the room, "Hey, did you see Dorian's latest attempt at Christmas decorations?"

"Should I? Does it live up to the year he put red and gold flashing wreaths on every door inside the hospital?" 

"No, I'm seriously asking if you've seen it. It's gone missing."

"Maybe he didn't put anything up? That's probably too much to ask, though."

"You're probably right. Someone else must have taken it down. Shame I didn't get to do it. It's our Christmas tradition. Oh well. I'm sure there's some cleaning for me to do.. It's the one day a year I actually clean, too."

"Good luck with that."

Perry dumped the chart at the nurse's station, and breathed a sigh of relief. The holiday was halfway over. Time for a shower and a nap before the post-midnight rush. What he found in there surprised him. Dorian's hat sitting on the bench, and Dorian was nowhere to be found.

Had he really not given one last attempt to decorate? Maybe Mary was right. Maybe even J.D. had given up. 

Victory had never been so bitter.

For the life of him, Dr. Cox couldn't explain why he made his next move. He'd long ago figured out Josephine's locker combination (or rather, had memorized it when the Janitor gave it to him as a birthday last year), and opened the locker. He took the decorations, and put them up in the lounge, thankful that no one was around to see him do it. They were blinding, but he kept going, using the design that Dorian had drawn out in considerable detail and really girly handwriting.

When he was done, he scribbled a note on a post-it and stuck it to the hat, leaving it in the middle of the table.

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause." 

 


End file.
